October 09, 2019
The San Francisco startup is part of a wave of automation
As a teenager working for his dad’s construction business, Noah Ready-Campbell
dreamed that robots could take over the dirty, tedious parts of his job, such as
digging and leveling soil for building projects. "As machines do some of the
work that people used to do, the people have to migrate and transition to other
forms of work, which means lots of retraining.
The drone is made by Silicon
Valley-based Kespry, which converts the survey data into Air
compressor Factory detailed 3-D maps and charges an annual subscription fee
for its services. Backed by venture capital, tech startups are developing
robots, drones, software and other technologies to help the construction
industry to boost speed, safety and productivity. "We support anything that
supports the masonry industry.
This becomes a complete game changer for a lot
of the industrial work that’s being accomplished today.The autonomous quadcopter
can survey the entire 90-acre site in 25 minutes.A recent survey by the
Associated General Contractors of America found that 70 percent of construction
firms are having trouble finding skilled workers. "And then the operator does
the more skilled work, where you really need a lot of finesse and
experience."There are lots of things that SAM isn’t capable of doing that you
need skilled bricklayers to do," Kennedy said.Bricklayer Michael Walsh says the
robot lessens the load on his body, but he doesn’t think it will take his job.
We don’t stand in the way of technology. They want a nice, clean job in an
office. "It ain’t going to replace people," Walsh said."I’m very excited about
where autonomous machines could be used in our industry," said Kyle Trew, a
contractor who worked with Built Robotics on the San Jose project.".
Workers at
Berich Masonry in Englewood, Colorado, recently spent several weeks learning how
to operate a bricklaying robot known as SAM."At his company’s mining plant in
Sunol, California, Moy is saving time and money by using a drone to measure the
giant piles of rock and sand his company sells for construction. The startup
also provides drones and mapping services to insurance companies surveying homes
damaged by natural disasters. "Hopefully I can use this as a tool to get an edge
on some of my competitors.
The San Francisco startup is part of a wave of
automation that’s transforming the construction industry, which has lagged
behind other sectors in technological innovation."The idea behind Built Robotics
is to use automation technology make construction safer, faster and cheaper,"
said Ready-Campbell, standing in a dirt lot where a small bulldozer moved mounds
of earth without a human operator."Not only is it safer and faster, but you get
more data, as much as ten to a hundred times more data," said Kespry CEO George
Mathew. Now the former Google engineer is turning that dream into a reality with
Built Robotics, a startup that’s developing technology to allow bulldozers,
excavators and other construction vehicles to operate themselves. Previously,
the company hired a contractor who would take a whole day to measure the piles
with a truck-mounted laser.
Right now I have to tell them ‘no’ because we’re at
capacity," he said."Built Robotics recently used its automated bulldozer —
retrofitted with sensors and autonomous driving technology — to grade the earth
on a construction site in San Jose. The project allows the startup to both test
its technology and generate some revenue. The International Union of Bricklayers
and Allied Craftworkers isn’t too concerned that robots will displace its
members anytime soon, according to policy director Brian Kennedy."The rise of
construction robots comes as the building industry faces a severe labor
shortage. "Nobody wants to get their hands dirty anymore."At Built Robotics,
Ready-Campbell, the company’s founder and CEO, envisions the future of
construction work as a partnership between humans and smart machines."The robots
basically do the 80 percent of the work, which is more repetitive, more
dangerous, more monotonous," he said.The goal, said company president Todd
Berich, is to use technology to take on more work and keep his existing
customers happy. Working on a scaffold, workers loaded the machine with bricks
and scraped off excess mortar left behind by the robot."We need all of the
robots we can get, plus all of the workers working, in order to have economic
growth," said Michael Chui, a partner at McKinsey Global Institute in San
Francisco. The machine can lay about 3,000 bricks in an eight-hour shift -
several times more than a mason working by hand.
That’s short for Semi-Automated
Mason, a $400,000 machine which is made by Victor, New York-based Construction
Robotics."To get qualified people to handle a loader or a haul truck or even run
a plant, they’re hard to find right now," said Mike Moy, a mining plant manager
at Lehigh Hanson.SAM’s mechanical arm picked up bricks, covered them with mortar
and carefully placed them to form the outside wall of a new elementary
school.Autonomous machines are changing the nature of construction work in an
industry that’s struggling to find enough skilled workers while facing a backlog
of building projects
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